Learning
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Having a kid isn't so bad, but you do have to learn a lot of stuff along the way. - One-shot.


Learning

Natsu learned a lot from having a kid. Stuff that he kinda already knew, but it was just driven home for him all the more afterwards.

Like how you didn't really _need_ sleep. Want was more the word. And just because something smells bad, like say, a certain baby, you can't just throw it out. Unfortunately.

"Lucy! The baby threw up on my scarf!"

Oh, and he learned that nothing was safe. Nothing.

The kid threw up on everything. And, later, tried to eat everything. Anything. It was horrible.

But…there were moments when it was just…so cool! Especially the longer time went on. The baby learned how to do all sorts of cool things. Like sit up on her own and roll around on the ground. And when she learned to crawl, well, gah!

It was just so cool.

"I'm pretty sure that our baby's, like, twenty times as great as all other babies, Hap."

"Aye, sir!"

He and Happy did all kinda stuff with the baby. Like they took her for walks and they taught her to talk. Never before had he been so pumped to not be out on a job. Before, those were the best moments of his life, getting to go out on all sorts of adventures and stuff.

That was before Navi though. She had to be hands down the best baby ever!

"She did it again!"

Except for when she did _that_.

"Natsu," Lucy would complain. "Babies spit up sometimes. It's just what they do."

"But on my scarf? Now I have to wash it!"

Lucy would only give the garment a disapproving look. "It probably needs it anyhow."

Bleh.

"You gotta stop that," he told her once, around her first birthday. He had her sitting down on his and Lucy's bed, some of her toys scattered about. "It's really icky and me and Happy don't like it much."

Happy, who was with him up there, nodded his head. "Not at all."

The baby only giggled, grinning at them as she waved her little hands in the air. "Ah!"

"You say that all the time," Natsu complained. "But then you never follow through. Gajeel and Laxus' kids don't puke on them! Not that I've asked around or anything, but, Navi, come on. Do you not like my scarf?"

He took it off then, holding it in front of her.

"Natsu," Happy warned, but he only shook his head.

"She can hold it," he said, watching as the baby reached out to grab it. She was still rather unbalanced at times though and fell back then, landing gently on the pillows behind her. Clutching the scarf in her hands, she giggled as Natsu only shifted to lay on his side next to her, smiling. "See? She- Ah, Navi! No!"

Apparently, the kid could also snot on his stuff without fear of reprimanding.

His scarf had never gone through such treatment before on a regular basis. And Lucy would only shrug, like it didn't matter.

Of course it mattered! It was all that mattered!

But what could he do? The baby sure liked the scarf. And he sure liked giving her things she liked. But she also seemed to enjoy messing things up.

A lot.

Like sometimes, he'd play blocks with her. And, being the guy who he was, he'd get real intense about his tower. Trying to build it higher and higher and-

Oh, wow, and there Navi was once again knocking it down with a devious giggle.

She was pure evil!

But…she was still his baby.

Yet another thing he learned from her was that that you had tons of hair. So if, say, a young child decided to tug strands of it out, you'd be fine. No, really.

Expect it would hurt like hell.

"Why does she only pull my hair?" Natsu complained.

"Maybe she thinks it's pretty," Lucy would always be quick to offer.

"Well, it's not, Navi," he'd tell her. "So knock it off."

But she wouldn't. And he couldn't yell at her. Not really. She was so tiny and needy and loads of fun.

And the older she got, the more she ate. Just like him! To a lesser extent.

"You shouldn't feed her so much," Lucy would scold whenever he came home with sweets for her.

"Why not?" Quite honestly, he just used her desire for food to fuel his own. "She's about the size of Happy now. Shouldn't she eat as much as him?"

"No. Definitely not."

"Hey," Happy complained. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

"No," Lucy said with a roll of her eyes. "But I am saying that a two year old shouldn't eat all the things you give her."

"C'mon, Luce. I waited a whole two years to be able to share everything with her," Natsu insisted. "First I couldn't feed her anything but milk, which, by the way, stunk. Then she could hardly chew. Now she can, but I still can't just feed her whatever? I mean, look at her. You like it, huh, Navi?"

That was another thing he learned. The kid was always on his side.

"Yes," was her answer to all of his questions. That's how come he always phrased them to where that was the correct answer. It was her favorite word, after all. "Yes!"

He used that against Lucy all the time. Like when he just got home from a job and didn't feel like doing something, he'd just use Navi.

"I can't cook dinner tonight, Luce," he'd say. "Navi likes it better when you cook. Don't you, Navi?"

"Yes!"

Or,

"Lucy, I'm training. I can't watch her. Just take her to the market with you. You'll behave, won't you, Navi?"

"Yes!"

She was pretty awesome when it came to stuff like that.

Gah! And Natsu realized just how much fun it was to teach the baby to talk. The older she got, the more words he taught her. It reminded him of Happy, who, by the way, helped out a lot.

"She's kinda like your little sister, Hap," Natsu told him once.

That didn't go over well.

"Gross," he said. "That would make you my dad."

"And what's wrong with that?"

Happy snickered then. "And then Lucy would be my mom."

"Oh, no, I agree with you now. Gross. Poor Navi."

"Poor me!"

"Trust me," Lucy told them as Happy hid behind Natsu for protection. "Lisanna can definitely take the honor as your mother, Happy."

"Why? I'm not good enough for you?"

"You just said you didn't want me anyways!"

"Sheesh. You know, I'm a lot nicer to you than you are to me."

"You are not. You say horrible things about me all the time."

"You gave my room away!"

"It wasn't your room to begin with. It was going to be Navi's from the start. That's why we moved into this place when I got pregnant. You're the one that started sleeping in there."

"You sure are a rotten stepmother."

"Shut up, you stupid cat."

Natsu only grinned at Navi though who giggled at the facing he was making.

"They argue because they love each other, huh?" He patted her on the head gently. "So don't worry none. Be more scared when they stop arguing."

Oh, no, by that point Navi was all used to their yelling. Lucy yelled a lot. From Natsu and Happy's point of view at least. Of course, it would be neglectful to not mention that it was usually their faults that she was yelling, but hey, they were messy. She knew that going in.

Natsu and Happy though, they made a lot of noise too. It was kinda problematic at the start. Natsu had to learn to tone down his excitement over things. He had a tendency to yell for no reason which, those first few months, could send Navi into hysterics. Especially if she was in the middle of a nap.

And poor Happy, he had to learn too not to blurt out, "Aye, sir!" at the top of his lungs whenever Lucy asked him to do something.

She was sensitive to noise back then.

Not anymore though. Nope. The kid made more noise than all of them at times. Especially when she was happy. She would yell and scream when Natsu tickled her or when she was riding up on his shoulders, shouting out to everything.

They were just loud people, he guessed. And it was great…when she wasn't throwing a tantrum.

Which, slowly, became the daily norm.

"My ears are precious, kid. They hear everything," he told her once as he and Happy tried to bribe her with toys and the such to calm her down. "And this isn't helping anything."

"Why does she cry though if there's nothing wrong?" Happy didn't rather like her fits either. "Maybe we should just leave quietly and go on a mission. Let Lucy deal with her."

"Luce ain't home. And we can't leave the baby by herself. Believe me, I thought about it."

Happy took off for the window then. "Maybe you can't leave her, but I can."

"Happy!"

"You're the father. Not me. I'mma go see if Carla's down at the guildhall."

"How could you, little buddy?"

"Like this," he said, jumping out of the window, wings giving him flight immediately. "Bye, Natsu. Bye, Navi."

"Sometimes he's the worst," Natsu complained, giving up on calming the little girl down and taking to just laying on his stomach. Navi was still sitting on the floor, whining loudly.

"And you're not much better right now," he grumbled to his daughter. "When are you gonna grow out of this, huh? Or at least go back to being a baby who slept all day and only cried when I had nothing important to do."

Apparently, there was no reasoning with the child. For another ten straight minutes, she practically screamed her lungs out. Honestly, Natsu was more impressed than anything else.

"You've got some roar," he complimented to no avail.

Sigh.

If Lucy got home and saw, once more, that he'd been unable to stop the baby from crying, she'd tell him once again that he wasn't ready to be left alone with her.

Which wasn't fair, by the way. The baby cried around Lucy too. So what if she was able to figure out her needs easier? Sometimes the kid didn't need anything. She just wanted to scream. Throw a fit.

How was that his fault?

As he laid there that day though, listening to her whine and waiting for Lucy to come back so that he could go track down Happy and then train, he started to get a little sleepy.

He was hoping that Navi was too, but she just wasn't letting up.

It was when he shut his eyes though and stopped responding to her that it happened.

Not immediately, but rather gradually, her cries tapered off. He was drifting away then too though and didn't notice at first.

"Daddy?" Navi was over next to him then, poking at his cheek. "Daddy?"

"Mmmm," he groaned. "You done cryin'?"

She poked at his face some more. "Nigh-nigh?"

"Naptime."

"Na-me."

"Mmmhmm."

Moving further down then, the toddler went to snuggle up against his side. Naptime.

Oh, and that was the most important thing Natsu learned. One of those ones that he didn't think he was ever missing. And maybe he wasn't, before, but since she was born, he'd come to realize it.

He never felt more whole than when she was snoozing next to him. And if she took after him in energy and gluttony, her ability to sleep the day away was high too.

Chuckling slightly as he reached down with one hand to pat her on the head, he knew there would never be another feeling like it. He'd give up everything for Navi. Even when she was annoying, she was still his favorite person in the world.

"Maybe no trainin' today," he mumbled as Navi yawned, snuggling closer. "After our nap, we can go to the park, huh? You wanna go to the park, Navi?"

"Yes," she mumbled tiredly. It was hard, throwing a tantrum for that long. "Pa'k."

"Mmmm. And we gotta find Happy. That traitor. He'd like to go to the park too, I'm sure."

"Happy."

"Mmmhmm."

"Mommy?"

Rolling onto his side, Natsu scooped her up so that she could rest closer to his face.

"She can come too. When she gets home. Not too soon though," he whispered as he pressed a kiss to her head. "I hope."

* * *

**Was working on the next chapter of Lost and Found, but then this happened instead. Oh well. All set in the Remember Me universe anyhow. **


End file.
